1.3 Author of the Report

1.3.1 I am a recognized authority on modern German history and have been teaching and researching it for the last thirty years. Since I began researching for my Oxford D.Phil. dissertation in 1969, I have acquired an excellent knowledge of German: I wrote my book Kneipengespräche im Kaiserreich: Die Stimmungsberichte der Hamburger Politischen Polizei 1892-1914 (Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1989) in German myself, and I have lectured in German at numerous German universities and on various public venues. As a result of my book on the Hamburg cholera epidemic of 1892 (Death in Hamburg: Society and Politics in the Cholera Years 1830-1910 (Oxford University Press, 1987; German edition 1990) I was invited to deliver the principal address in German at the centenary commemoration in Hamburg City Hall in 1992. I have made numerous radio and television broadcasts in German, for North German Radio and other stations as well as for the BBC World Service, and my work on Hamburg was the subject of a 45-minute television programme, featuring interviews with me in German, in 1989 (Mr. Evans geht durch Hamburg, NDR 3).

1.3.2Because my research has necessitated lengthy periods of research in German archives and libraries, I have spent a great deal of time in Germany over the last thirty years, including eighteen months as a Hanseatic Scholar in Hamburg and Berlin in 1970-72, eighteen months as a Research Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the Free University of Berlin in 1981, 1985 and 1989, and various periods as a Research Scholar or Senior Scholar of the German Academic Exchange Service. I have also twice been a resident member of the Institute for European History in Mainz. My work has taken me to virtually all major German towns and cities, including Bamberg, Bochum, Bremen, Coburg, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Erfurt, Essen, Frankfurt, Karlsruhe, Leipzig, Magdeburg, Munich, Potsdam, Schwerin, Stuttgart, and so on. I am familiar with Germany and the Germans as well as with the German language.

1.3.3 My research has ranged widely over German history in the last three centuries. It has become well known for the thoroughness and comprehensiveness of its use of unpublished manuscript material. Much of it has concentrated on the nineteenth century. Some of my most important work, however, has also dealt with the Second World War. In particular my book Rituals of Retribution: Capital Punishment in Germany 1600-1987 (Oxford University Press, 1996), based on unpublished manuscripts and typescripts in 26 archives, contains three Chapters (pp. 613-737) on the 'Third Reich', of which Chapter 16 (pp. 689-737) deals exclusively on the war years 1939-45, using particularly files of the Reich Ministry of Justice in the German Federal Archive (Bundesarchiv) in Koblenz. More recently, my current work on the history of German criminology has led me to use material in the Institut für Zeitgeschichte (Institute for Contemporary History) in Munich.

1.3.4 I am also familiar with the printed and published documentation of the 'Third Reich', which is extremely voluminous. I have used some of it in my published work, but I have also made use of it in my teaching: since 1972 I have been teaching a document-based Special Subject on the 'Third Reich', first at the University of East Anglia, then at Birkbeck College, University of London, and from the year 2000 in the History Faculty at Cambridge University.

1.3.5 I am internationally recognized as an authority on modern German history, including the history of Germany during the Second World War: six of my books have been published in German, and my work has also been translated into French, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Swedish, and other languages. I have given over two hundred lectures and conference or seminar papers at universities and other venues in many countries, including Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, and the USA.

1.3.6 I am also recognized as an authority on historiography, that is, on historical theory and method. In particular, my book In Defence of History, published by Granta Books in 1997, has attracted widespread praise. It has been described by Bernard Crick as 'a rare intellectual achievement, speaking lucidly to both historians and to the general reader', and according to Sir Keith Thomas (President of the British Academy) 'deserves to be essential reading for coming generations'. It was praised in the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, the Financial Times and other newspapers as a strong defence of the idea of objectivity in history. It was published in a revised edition by W. W. Norton & Co., New York, in 1999, has been translated into German (Fakten und Fiktionen: Über die Grundlagen historischer Erkenntnis, Campus Verlag, 1998) and Korean, and is contracted to appear in translated editions in Japanese, Portuguese, Swedish and Turkish.

1.3.7 My books have not only been widely translated, they are also widely read in comparison to most academic texts. Death in Hamburg in particular has sold an estimated 13,000 copies in the German edition and 8,000 in English. In Defence of History went through three editions in hardback before its publication in paperback and has sold over 10,000 copies. Rituals of Retribution has been published in a paperback edition by Penguin Books. Three of my books in German have been produced by a commercial publishing house (Rowohlt Verlag) and published as trade paperbacks. I have always made a point of trying to appeal to a wide readership.

1.3.8My work has won a number of prizes and awards in Britain, Germany and the USA, including the Fraenkel Prize for Contemporary History, the Hamburger Medaille für Kunst und Wissenschaft, the William H. Welch Medal of the American Association for the History of Medicine, and the Wolfson Literary Award for History. I am a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1993.

1.3.9 My reputation as a recognized authority on Germany, German history and the theory and practice of history has led to frequent invitations to broadcast on the BBC, in particular Radio 3 and Radio 4, on programmes including Kaleidoscope, Front Row, Start the Week, In Our Time, Nightwaves, and Today.